Option to change your steam username

[BOB]

There should be an way to chance your steam username.

[winter 💕☯]

I thought too that username would be private but when i downloaded destiny 2 it used my username (which is my real name). Had i known they would be sharing for everyone that i play with to see i would definitely not have used that. Destiny 2 doesnt support me changing it with them either.

[Black Blade]

manjiro eredeti hozzászólása:

I thought too that username would be private but when i downloaded destiny 2 it used my username (which is my real name). Had i known they would be sharing for everyone that i play with to see i would definitely not have used that. Destiny 2 doesnt support me changing it with them either.

So there you do indeed have better grounds to ask to change
The main thing many point out is here only the user them self can see it, so it should not be all that bother for the user over all

[Brian9824]

Years back a mod already explained the reason as being due to poor database design with the account name being the primary key. So its simply too risky and could break to many things for the minuscule amount of people it would remotely benefit in the tiniest way.

[Brian9824]

manjiro eredeti hozzászólása:

I thought too that username would be private but when i downloaded destiny 2 it used my username (which is my real name). Had i known they would be sharing for everyone that i play with to see i would definitely not have used that. Destiny 2 doesnt support me changing it with them either.

Completely false, it uses your display name, not your account name and always has. Here is an article from when it first launched
https://www.usgamer.net/articles/destiny-2-players-are-spicing-up-their-names-thanks-to-its-newfound-home-on-steam

[Quint the Alligator Snapper]

Kai eredeti hozzászólása:

None of these matter though. A silly name that no one will ever see,

Changing an embarrassing name is an incidental benefit of such a feature.

Kai eredeti hozzászólása:

Steam Guard protects accounts and again, that info is 100% private and no one can see it or even find out what it is without you literally giving it away, and it doesn't matter what devs/publishers can do.

There's already been an instance of Steam messing up the password recovery page and letting hijackers who had only the login name to mess with accounts, causing at the very least disruption of service to the account, if not worse.
Steam's security isn't guaranteed to be perfect, so it makes sense to be able to secure a piece of account information used to access the account that you say is "100% private".

Kai eredeti hozzászólása:

None of these are good or valid reasons for Valve to put millions of dollars into rebuilding the entire database so you can change your login name, which again, only you know about.

How do you how much it'll cost Steam to implement such a feature?

brian9824 eredeti hozzászólása:

Years back a mod already explained the reason as being due to poor database design with the account name being the primary key. So its simply too risky and could break to many things for the minuscule amount of people it would remotely benefit in the tiniest way.

And that was years ago, and the information provided about that was also very sparse, just that the information was the only information that was offered on this topic and thus the only thing people had to go on so it's been repeated ever since.

Not to mention that the login doesn't even need to directly use the primary key.

[JPMcMillen]

Quint the Alligator Snapper eredeti hozzászólása:

brian9824 eredeti hozzászólása:

Years back a mod already explained the reason as being due to poor database design with the account name being the primary key. So its simply too risky and could break to many things for the minuscule amount of people it would remotely benefit in the tiniest way.

And that was years ago, and the information provided about that was also very sparse, just that the information was the only information that was offered on this topic and thus the only thing people had to go on so it's been repeated ever since.

Not to mention that the login doesn't even need to directly use the primary key.

It may have been years ago, but that doesn't change the system was never setup to allow the login name to be changed and that doing so would be costly in both time and money because if anything went wrong with a name change it would completely break the users account.

The reason they had looked into it back then was to force all early users that had to use their email address as their login name to change it to something else. So if this was going to happen with the current database Steam system it would have already been done.

As someone stated above, this will probably not change unless Valve migrates all user data to a new database at which point making that a possible feature would probably not be as complicated as it would with the current database.

[Start_Running]

It wouldn't be complicated at all in that scenario. It's easy to add a basement before, and while a house is being built as opposed to 10 years after.

The issue there is of course it would require something pretty major to cause such a miogration in the first place because everything is tied intto that database, and even then. one wonders if it would be worth the extra security hassle , because now hijacked accounts can have even their user names changed, so by what method would someone even identify their old account?

If nothing else, currently there is always the fixed reference point that is tthe username/login name.

It seems a big issue and headache to please a few people, who regret their edgelord meme usernames.

[Quint the Alligator Snapper]

JPMcMillen eredeti hozzászólása:

It may have been years ago, but that doesn't change the system was never setup to allow the login name to be changed and that doing so would be costly in both time and money because if anything went wrong with a name change it would completely break the users account.

The reason they had looked into it back then was to force all early users that had to use their email address as their login name to change it to something else. So if this was going to happen with the current database Steam system it would have already been done.

The thing is, that's their backend. The stuff that's actually shown to/used by the user doesn't necessarily need to match it. Point being, as others suggested in previous incarnations of this thread, even if it's absolutely dead stuck that the account name is unchangeable, the login name (and for that matter, the "account name" displayed to the user) doesn't actually need to be the account name in the database.

[Quint the Alligator Snapper]

Start_Running eredeti hozzászólása:

one wonders if it would be worth the extra security hassle , because now hijacked accounts can have even their user names changed, so by what method would someone even identify their old account?

By the rest of the records on the account. Y'know, like when someone needs to prove their identity to recover their account. Simply knowing the login name isn't enough there either.

Start_Running eredeti hozzászólása:

If nothing else, currently there is always the fixed reference point that is tthe username/login name.

The actual fixed reference point that the user has absolutely no control over is the SteamID.

Start_Running eredeti hozzászólása:

It seems a big issue and headache to please a few people, who regret their edgelord meme usernames.

You cited the possibility of hijackers changing account names, but you neglected the possibility of legitimate users changing account names to secure them from hijackers.

[Mikoto]

Start_Running eredeti hozzászólása:

one wonders if it would be worth the extra security hassle , because now hijacked accounts can have even their user names changed, so by what method would someone even identify their old account?

Which is why the implementation of this post-build just does not work. Additionally, it still serves no purpose.

Quint the Alligator Snapper eredeti hozzászólása:

You cited the possibility of hijackers changing account names, but you neglected the possibility of legitimate users changing account names to secure them from hijackers.

And you neglected to include how changing that information only causes more people to be vulnerable. Which again, like so many of your posts in favor of this idea, is completely void of any rational reasoning for why this idea is a good thing.

Let's say your login name is "mystinkybutt" and you were an idiot and gave your info out to a scam site (because there are no such things as hijackers with Steam Guard...) and then changed your user name immediately after because you realized how dumb you were to do that. New user shows up and goes "ha, yeah, I want my login name to be "mystinkybutt" because I too think it is a funny name." so now because you were an idiot for 0.5s, his account is now compromised because you changed your login name.

So again, this idea is objectively terrible and your reason for why you want it is factually worthless in every scenario when it involves opening up others to your own mistakes.

[Start_Running]

Kai eredeti hozzászólása:

Start_Running eredeti hozzászólása:

one wonders if it would be worth the extra security hassle , because now hijacked accounts can have even their user names changed, so by what method would someone even identify their old account?

Which is why the implementation of this post-build just does not work. Additionally, it still serves no purpose.

I'd modify that to "No purpose worth the headache".

Quint the Alligator Snapper eredeti hozzászólása:

You cited the possibility of hijackers changing account names, but you neglected the possibility of legitimate users changing account names to secure them from hijackers.

And you neglected to include how changing that information only causes more people to be vulnerable. Which again, like so many of your posts in favor of this idea, is completely void of any rational reasoning for why this idea is a good thing.

And I didn't actually forget that. Its just that people using it as intended with prioper responsibility are never the issue. But there's also another scenario of users changing their usernames, and then forgetting said username...and oh look we're back to the recovery problem.

How many times have any of us changed a password only to forget it next time we need it?
I can say it happens frequently enough that password recovery (automatted at that) is a nigh ubiquitous feature.

As said. If valve has to re do the database they might. I mean honestly it justt means they'd have to have a user name, a login name, a userID and an account ID for every account....yeah that seems like more trouble than its worth, better someone live with the regret of the poorly chosen username

[Occhi1991]

In my opinion, the main problem is that the more time goes by before this feature is implemented, the more it will be difficult to do so as the number of accounts created grows constantly.

The only thing we can do is throwing in the towel at this point.

[Brian9824]

Occhi1991 eredeti hozzászólása:

In my opinion, the main problem is that the more time goes by before this feature is implemented, the more it will be difficult to do so as the number of accounts created grows constantly.

The only thing we can do is throwing in the towel at this point.

It's already well past that point with how massive steam is now.

[Mikoto]

Occhi1991 eredeti hozzászólása:

In my opinion, the main problem is that the more time goes by before this feature is implemented, the more it will be difficult to do so as the number of accounts created grows constantly.

The only thing we can do is throwing in the towel at this point.

The ship has long passed but also there is no good reason for why this is such an important feature at all to begin with. As I already pointed out, it only introduces security risks for every single new user (if they do not have a phone to use SG with) and also risks every single user on Steam losing their entire accounts for literally no gain.

This idea was never worth it and never will be in any scenario.

[ShoulderBoulder OG]

When will we run out of account names? I remember hearing that if you delete an account you can’t reuse it’s name which doesn’t really make sense if it’s true.